Conventionally, in a monitoring system that performs monitoring by a message related to an abnormality or other statuses of a device, a monitoring target device transmits the full text of the message to a monitoring device, and the monitoring device to which the message has been transmitted uses the message to monitor the monitoring target device.
In another example of the transmittance of a message related to an abnormality, the monitoring target device stores a message having been transmitted as a processed message including a message ID in a learning table. When a new abnormality occurs in the monitoring target device, the monitoring target device examines whether a message identical to the message related to the abnormality is among message IDs stored in the learning table. If the identical message is stored therein, the monitoring target device determines consistency between the new message and the message in the learning table for each section, and transmits inconsistent sections together with the message ID to the monitoring device.
However, in the monitoring system disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 07-244620, for example, the consistency between the new message and the processed message is determined by using the message ID as a key. Therefore, in a monitoring system that requires no message ID, the monitoring target device transmits the full text of the new message to the monitoring device. This increases the network load. Note that monitoring systems that require no message ID include an open system whose operation system (OS) is UNIX (registered trademark), for example.
Furthermore, in a monitoring system that requires message IDs as in the related art, even if the new message and the processed message are almost identical to each other, the monitoring target device may not determine that these messages are identical when their message IDs are different from each other. As a result, even when the messages are almost identical to each other, the monitoring target device transmits the full text of the new message to the monitoring device, resulting in an increase in the network load.